Accepted Manuscript: Research in International Business and Finance
Accepted Manuscript: Research in International Business and Finance
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ribaf.2018.07.006
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Please cite this article as: Abreu M, HOW BIASED IS THE BEHAVIOR OF THE
INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR IN WARRANTS?, Research in International Business and
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HOW BIASED IS THE BEHAVIOR OF THE
INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR IN WARRANTS?
Margarida ABREU1
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ISEG (Lisbon School of Economics & Management) - Universidade de Lisboa
Rua do Quelhas, 6, 1200-781 Lisboa, Portugal
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Tel.: +351-213 925 800
E-mail: [email protected]
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http://www.iseg.utl.pt/
SC
UECE (Research Unit on Complexity and Economics)
Rua Miguel Lupi, 20, 1249-078 Lisboa, Portugal
Tel.: +351 - 213 925 912
Based on the actual trading behavior of individual investors in the Portuguese financial market
during almost ten years this paper examines the socio-demographic characteristics of retail investors
in warrants, and discusses the hypothesis that some behavioral biases do have an impact on the
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investors’ predisposition to invest and trade in warrants, a complex financial instrument. One finds
that there is a profile of investors in warrants: younger and less educated men are more likely to
invest in warrants and that overconfident, disposition-prone and investors exhibiting a gambling
attitude are more likely to invest and trade in warrants. Secondly, the gambling motive seems to be
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a distinguishing characteristic of investors in warrants. In other words, when investors are driven to
trade in financial markets for pleasure/fun they tend to trade complex products more and to trade
simple and easier to understand financial instruments less. Finally, the higher the intensity of
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trading the more relevant are the disposition and the gambler’s biases.
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KEYWORDS
Warrants, overconfidence, disposition effect, gambling effect, individual investor behavior
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JEL CODES
G41, G11, G12
1
ISEG - Universidade de Lisboa, Department of Economics; REM (Research in Economics and Mathematics);
UECE (Research Unit on Complexity and Economics), R. Miguel Lupi 20, 1249-078 Lisbon, Portugal, email:
[email protected]. UECE is supported by the Fundacão para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese
Foundation for Science and Technology). This article is part of the Strategic Project (UID/ECO/00436/2013).
1. Introduction
In spite of the success that warrants have had in some financial markets, little is
known regarding the profile of those most likely to invest in this complex financial
instrument. This paper looks to define the profile of the investor in warrants and
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searches for non-rational motives that may explain the success of the market for
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warrants among individual investors. Based on the actual trading behavior of individual
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investors in the Portuguese financial market during almost ten years, I examine the
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socio-demographic characteristics of the investors in warrants and discuss the
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predisposition to invest and trade in warrants. More precisely, I empirically examine
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the hypotheses that overconfidence, the disposition effect and the pleasure of
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gambling have an impact on the participation and trading in warrants, controlling for
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behavioral biases differences between investors that trade intensely in warrants and
knowledge, abilities and the precision of their information, as well as their capacity to
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estimate and control future events, overconfidence has been defined in different
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dimensions: miscalibration (cf. Lichtenstein et al. 1982, Fischhoff et al. 1977 or Daniel
people who are overconfident about their abilities tend to overestimate their influence
2
over outcomes. For that reason, one could argue that overconfidence is best
because they overestimate the precision of the information they have, or because they
think they have above average investment skills, trade more than rational investors.
For De Bondt and Thaler (1995) overconfidence is the key behavioral factor needed
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to understand the overtrading puzzle. Odean (1998b) argues that the high level of
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trading volume is the most important effect of overconfidence. Statman et al. (2006)
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presents empirical evidence for the US market and argues that trading volume is
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particularly higher after high returns, as investment success increases the degree of
overconfidence.
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However, the different dimensions of overconfidence do not measure the same
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thing and research shows that they do not induce the same errors in the financial
abilities, knowledge and overall capacity to analyze available information are better
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than average may have a particular impact on trading behavior, particularly for
makes them trade more. Due to a self-attribution bias, investors think they are above
average regarding their investment skills. This better than average effect has been
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documented empirically by Glaser and Weber (2007) who provide evidence of a higher
investors as those who think they are better than average in terms of investment skills
3
or past performance. This finding is also consistent with other studies (see Deaves et
fact, investors who show this bias usually hold poorly diversified portfolios and end up
making bad financial decisions that are contrary to rational models of investment.
Labeled by Shefrin and Statman (1984), the disposition effect describes the tendency
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that investors have to sell securities whose price is rising, the so-called winners, while
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keeping in portfolio securities whose price is declining, the losers.
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Rational motives may justify the disposition effect: portfolio rebalancing and trading
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costs, among others. However, Odean (1998a) finds disposition effect even after
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controlling for portfolio rebalancing and trading costs, and Lakonishok and Smidt
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(1986) considers that the disposition effect dominates tax-related motives for selling
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stocks at a loss. Several other empirical papers have also documented the existence
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of disposition effect (Grinblatt and Keloharju 2001, Shapira and Venezia 2001, Dhar
Much of the behavioral finance literature relates the disposition effect to loss
aversion. Investors value a title gain or loss relatively to a reference point, usually the
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purchase price of the asset. When transactions are carried in the financial market,
agents will evaluate their portfolio and whether the assets have appreciated or
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depreciated vis-a-vis the purchase price. Combining the analysis of the reference point
with the fact that investors are risk averse in the domain of gains and risk seekers in
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the domain of losses, it is easy to understand that if the asset price falls and remains
below the reference point, investors, who value losses more than gains, will be averse
to sell that asset for a loss, causing a reduction in the supply of potential sellers. A
losing stock would be considered a loss and being risk-seeker in this domain would
4
cause the investor to hold the stock. However, other behavioral finance justifications
have been added to explain the disposition effect. Barberis and Xiong (2009)
concludes that the investors’ tendency for selling winning stocks too early and holding
losing stocks too long depends on the success of past investments. If past investments
where set at a gain, the agents will be progressively less risk averse and will show
more disposition effect. Muermann and Volkman (2006) focuses on how anticipating
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regret and pride in a dynamic setting may cause investors to optimally follow a strategy
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in which they sell winning stocks and hold losing stocks; that is, on how anticipating
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regret and pride contribute to explain the disposition effect. Summers and Duxbury
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(2012) favors emotion over prospect theory to explain the disposition effect.
wide context, associated with other types of positive emotions (Proyer 2017 mentions
interest or contentment). Some people trade in financial markets only because trading
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brings the joy of gambling. Dorn and Sengmueller (2009) examines the hypothesis
transaction records for a sample of more than 1,000 clients at one discount broker in
Germany. The authors conclude that although investors do not only trade for
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more than their peers. In addition, entertainment-driven investors turn over their
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portfolio of stocks, bonds, funds and options at roughly twice the rate of their peers. In
the same line of reasoning some authors argue that investors who are more prone to
seeking is a trait defined by the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and intense
5
sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take financial risks for the sake of
such experience.”2 As Grinblatt and Keloharju (2009) puts it, for investors prone to
sensation seeking ‘‘the mere act of trading and the monitoring of a constant flow of
‘fresh stocks’ in one’s portfolio may create a more varied and novel experience than a
This study adds to the existing literature on derivative products in some important
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aspects. Firstly, I analyze the relative importance of overconfidence, disposition and
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gambling as drivers for the individual investment and trading in warrants (a complex
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financial product), comparing to the investment and trading in stocks. Secondly, as far
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as I know this is the first study that analyzes whether investors who invest and trade
more frequently have a different profile than other investors who trade less frequently.
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Lastly, unlike most empirical studies the design of this research combines actual
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trading behavior of retail investors with a survey of these investors conducted by a
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I start out documenting that investors in warrants are indeed different, not only
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because they have specific socio-demographic characteristics but they also reveal
disposition or a gambling attitude are more likely to invest in warrants. Next, investor’s
trading activity is studied and the hypothesis that investors in warrants trade differently
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than investors in stocks is tested. Results show that warrant trading activity increases
with overconfidence, disposition and gambling. The warrant market differs from the
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stock market in the sense that the search for pleasure seems to increase warrant
transactions but decreases stock trading activity. In other words, when investors are
2
Cf. Zuckerman (1994), p.27.
3
Cf. Grinblatt and Keloharju (2009), p.556.
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driven to trade in financial markets for pleasure they tend to trade complex products
more and to trade simple and easier to understand financial instruments less. Finally,
I control for the time span in which the investor is active in the market, splitting
investors according to their intensity of trading. I find that disposition and gambler’s
effects are more relevant to explain the frequency of trading the higher the intensity,
but they are of no help to understand the top quantile traders. High trading frequency
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investors seem to be more heterogeneous and without a clear-cut socio-demographic
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and behavioral profile.
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The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The next section describes
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the databases used and the construction of the behavioral variables used in the paper.
The third section traces the socio-demographic profile of investors in warrants and
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studies the importance of overconfidence, disposition and gambling as determinants
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of the decision to participate in the market for warrants. In section 4 the trading activity
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in stocks and warrants is studied. Section 5 analyses the trading frequency and I
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control for the time span in which investors are active in the market. In the last section
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2.1. Data
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The main database used in this study (the trading database) contains information
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from one of the top three Portuguese banks, with a market share of 15% to 20%. The
information relates to all the existing accounts of individual (ie, retail) investors and
includes the demographic data (marital status, birth date, gender, education,
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information on all transactions in financial instruments linked to these accounts for the
period 02/01/1997 to 16/09/2006. This information includes the date of the transaction,
the transaction type (purchase or sale), the ISIN code of the financial instrument, the
In the period of almost ten years covered by this database, 3,620 investors traded
warrants and 491,540 traded stocks. This means that for every 136 equity investors
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only one traded warrants, which is to say that the market of this derivative instrument
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is composed of a small percentage of the Portuguese population. It is difficult to
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establish a comparison with other countries and jurisdictions, because this kind of
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information is not easily available. Nevertheless, it is possible to compare this
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percentage with the one in Hong-Kong: according to SFC (2006), 12.6% of individual
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investors in Hong-Kong had made transactions in warrants, which is a percentage far
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higher than the Portuguese one. This may reflect the programs of privatization carried
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out by successive governments that led many Portuguese families to invest in the
stock of firms being privatized during this period, as well as the greater complexity of
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warrants (in comparison with stocks) that discourages the investment in this financial
instrument. It is also the result of the late introduction of this derivative instrument in
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(Decree-Law No. 229-B/88 of July 4): bonds may have detachable warrants, and the
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bondholder has a warrant that confers on him the right to acquire shares at a price
under predetermined conditions. This warrant is detached from the bond and can be
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freely traded on the stock market regardless of the bond it was detached from.
Subsequently, Decree-Law No. 172/99 of May 20 was approved, which was followed
by Regulation No. 19/99 of the CMVM (the Portuguese Securities Supervisor), dated
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November 10th, both of which established the legal framework of covered warrants.
The first issue of detachable warrants in Portugal was led by the Banco Comercial de
Macau, in 1990, and the first issue of covered warrants was led by Banco Santander
Thus, it is not surprising that in the period covered by the database the total number
of trades in stocks (more than 3.8 million) is much greater than the total number of
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trades in warrants (slightly above 0.2 million), or that the average number of trades in
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warrants (stocks) per investor is 58.3 (7.8).4 Indeed, many investors had their first
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contact with the stock market following the privatization of state-owned firms, but
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acquired the shares in a purely buy-and-hold strategy or sold them later without having
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invested in new stocks. On the contrary, the greater complexity of warrants may have
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led some investors to specialize in this derivative instrument and, consequently, to be
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much more active, buying and selling on market expectations that they have regarding
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However, the sample used in the following sections is restricted to less investors.
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Firstly, only investors who trade stocks are selected from the database, and I exclude
investors living abroad. I also exclude what I name ‘curious investors’, that is, investors
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who have only traded once in either stocks or warrants. Some of these equity investors
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also invest and trade in warrants, and after the exclusion of some observations for
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which there is not sufficient information, I end up with a sample of 52,768 stock
investors, off which 1,705 also trade warrants during the period covered by the dataset.
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The activity of warrant investors is illustrated in this smaller sample by the total number
4
In the database used by Schmitz et al. (2007) the average investor made 55 transactions in warrants. However,
the time period covered is only 51 months, shorter than the one used here.
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of stock trades (743,340) which is more than 7 times higher than the total number of
trades in warrants (102,314); the average number of trades per investor is 79.0 trades
in warrants and only 13.6 trades in stocks (the maximum is 3,374 and 2,232 trades in
to identify the characteristics of Portuguese individual investors.5 The most recent one
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was conducted in 2000, and was publicly released in May 2005 on the CMVM website.
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More than fifteen thousand individuals were contacted between 2 October and 22
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December 2000 using the direct interview technique. These individuals were
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responsible or co-responsible for the investment decisions within the family. All the
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identified investors in securities (1,559) were interviewed using a structured
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questionnaire. Each questionnaire included socio-demographic questions, questions
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related to the nature and type of the assets held and investor experience, but there
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are no questions related to the size of the portfolio, nor the amounts invested in each
type of asset. There are also questions related to investor’s trading behavior
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knowledge about markets and market players. This database is used to compute
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proxies for the better than average and the gambling attitude towards the investment
in derivatives variables.
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5
The survey identifies an investor in securities as one holding one or more of the following assets: stocks, bonds,
mutual funds, participation certificates and derivatives.
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2.2. Behavioral variables
Two approaches are used to deal with the overconfidence issue. Firstly, the
approach of Goetzmann and Kumar (2008) and Bailey et al. (2008) is followed, and
an investor is considered overconfident if his trading activity is in the top quartile of the
distribution on investors’ trading activity (i.e., are in the upper quartile of the number
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of trades in stocks) and his performance is in the bottom quartile of the distribution of
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investors’ stock returns. This definition is based on the idea that overconfident
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investors trade too much and consequently get lower returns for their investments
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(Odean 1999, Barber and Odean 2000). The variable so defined is labeled
OVERCONFIDENCE.
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Alternatively, I also use the better than average concept. Overconfident investors
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are defined as those who believe that they know more than they actually do, this being
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measured by the difference, if positive, between self-reported financial knowledge and
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the survey question: “How do you rate, on a 1 (very low) to 7 (very high) scale, your
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own knowledge of financial assets and markets?”. Investors’ answers to this question
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are compared with an actual knowledge variable measured in the 1 to 7 scale, which
Three of the survey questions (questions 7, 11 combined with 11A, and 13) are
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used to compute investors’ actual knowledge. In the survey, investors are asked to
7). Responses to this answer are marked from 0 to 5, 0 meaning that investor fails to
mention the name of any company, and 5 that he correctly named 5 companies with
shares or bonds listed. In question 11A (and in question 11) investors are asked
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whether they know any of the following entities: BVLP, Interbolsa, CMVM, Credit
Institutions, Dealers. Again, answers are marked from 0 to 5, with 0 meaning that
investors are unaware of these entities and 5 that they know them all. Finally, question
13 is the following: “If you wish to file a complaint about a financial intermediary, an
issuer or any other entity related with the securities markets, to whom would you
address it?” Answers are marked with 5 if CMVM is mentioned and with 0 if no entity
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(or a wrong one) is identified. The unweighted average of the answers obtained to
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these three questions, converted to the 1 to 7 scale, is used as a proxy for the actual
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knowledge of individual investors, higher values meaning that investors have a better
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understanding of financial markets.
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If the difference between the self-reported and the actual knowledge is positive
and greater than 0.9 then BETTER THAN AVERAGE = 1.6 I follow Graham et al.
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(2009) and construct an empirical model for this variable: I regress BETTER THAN
characteristics from the CMVM survey. In a second step, the estimated coefficients of
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this linear probability model (LPM) are used to predict whether investors in the trading
database are (are not) better than average. I now use the socio-demographic investor
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characteristics from the trading database and the estimated LPM coefficients to
estimate whether investors are better than average, again using an LPM model.
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Assuming that the percentage of investors with this bias in the trading database is
equal to the percentage of better than average investors in the survey, BETTER THAN
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6
Different limits were used and the results are robust.
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AVERAGE = 1 for the investors with the higher score in the model estimated in the
To access the hedonic motive for investment I construct the GAMBLING variable,
with a procedure similar to that of the better than average variable. Investors are
when they do not get any information regarding financial markets and products and
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yet they trade financial instruments, whichever they are. From the CMVM’s survey the
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socio-demographic characteristics of the investors who do not use any source of
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information to get informed on financial markets and products are analyzed, and I
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assume that these investors do have a gambling attitude because they invest and
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trade in financial instruments without getting any information on financial markets and
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products. Firstly, this gambling variable is regressed on a set of socio-demographic
second step, the estimated coefficients of this model are used to predict which
investors in the transactions database have a gambling attitude. Assuming that the
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percentages of investors with a gambling attitude are similar in the survey and in the
main trading database, GAMBLING = 1 for the investors with the higher scores in the
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As regards the DISPOSITION proxy, I follow the Goetzmann and Massa (2008)
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at gain”.9 Then, for each stock in the portfolio, a time series of the trades (sales and
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7
Graham et al. (2009) use ordered logit and logit regressions. Differently from them, I use an LPM model and
convert the predicted variables into binary variables. In so doing I diminish the eventual collinearity between
the predicted variables and the investor characteristics. Moreover, as a robustness exercise, I orthogonalize the
socio-demographic variables so that collinearity does not impact empirical results. Results (not reported) are
essentially unchanged.
8
The procedure described in footnote 6 is also used.
9
I assume a LIFO criterion (the last shares bought are the first ones to be sold) to identify sales at loss.
13
buys) at loss and trades at gain is constructed. For example, when a sale happens, I
compute the difference between the sell price and the price at which the previous
purchase of that stock occurred. Negative differences (sale price lower than the buy
price) are recorded as sale at loss, and positive differences as sale at gain. Buys are
treated in a similar fashion; in these cases the price that occurred in the previous trade
of the same stock (regardless of it being a sale or a purchase) is used as the reference
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price. Given that disposition investors tend to sell winning stocks (that is, sell at gain)
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and buy losing stocks (that is, buy at loss), for each stock I compute the ratio between
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buys at loss plus sells at gain minus sells at loss minus buys at gain, standardized by
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the sum of buy at loss, buy at gain, sell at loss and sell at gain. Adding up for all stocks
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in the portfolio, if this ratio is positive, then the investor exhibits disposition effect, and
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if not positive the investor dos not exhibit disposition effect. Thus, DISPOSITION = 1
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if that ratio is positive, and zero otherwise.
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both warrants and stocks from those who only traded stocks (that is, the decision to
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participate in the market for warrants). The base probit model is the following:
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where10:
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10
I do not include wealth or income variables because the database does not have any information directly linked
to these variables, thus preventing the inclusion of these aspects in the model.
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Warrant is a binary variable, equal to 1 if the investor trades in warrants during
the period, and zero otherwise (that is, the investor trades in stocks but not in
warrants);
Age is the age of the investor in years, defined as (2006 minus the year of birth
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of the account holder);
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Married is the marital status of the investor, and is equal to 1 if he/she is married;
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Education is the level of education. Three categories are considered: Low = 1,
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if the investor has 4 or less years of education; Intermediate = 1, if the investor
is, works but does not have a tenured position in a company); and Inactive = 1,
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if living in Porto; Other = 1 if the investor does not live in Lisbon or in Porto.11
11
Four or less years of education, inactive workers (mostly retired), and residence outside Lisbon and Porto are
the omitted categories in all the regressions.
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The literature considers that more risk-tolerant behavior is associated with
younger investors who do not have family responsibilities within marriage, and that
more qualified professions are generally associated with a higher income level and
thus permit taking higher risks. In fact, it has been shown that investors’ behavior
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(Goetzmann and Kumar 2008). Barber and Odean (2001) and Goetzmann and Kumar
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(2008), for example, report evidence that married investors, women and older
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investors have less appetite for risk. On the other hand, higher levels of education
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have been positively associated with greater sophistication. Related to this literature,
recent works on financial literacy show that the higher the individual knowledge, the
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more efficient and rational will be her/his financial behavior, such as planning and
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saving for retirement (Lusardi and Mitchell 2017), investing in the stock market
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controlling for their job (the closest proxy for income insofar as neither the survey nor
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the trading database have an income or wealth variable). To that end, dummy
variables are used to identify inactive investors, INACTIVE, investors with a highly
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skilled job, HIGHLY SKILLED, those with a skilled job, SKILLED, those with low skilled
jobs, LOW SKILL, and investors who are professional liberals, INDEPENDENT
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WORKERS. Investor’s residence is also controlled for since investors who live in the
metropolitan areas are usually more educated, are more likely to be wealthier and
employed in the financial sector and consequently to have access to better quality
information. Thus, I distinguish investors who reside in Lisbon, LISBON, from those
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who reside in Porto, PORTO, which are the two largest Portuguese cities, from
The probit model is estimated by maximum likelihood, and the results are in
Table 1. The results of the base model (column [1]) confirm that investors in warrants
younger and less educated men are more likely to invest in warrants, and investors
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with higher skilled jobs are more likely to invest only in stocks. As regards residence,
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living in the largest cities does not allow any discrimination between investors in stocks
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and in warrants. Marital status is not a distinguishing factor as well.
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In columns [2] and [3] of Table 1 I introduce the behavioral characteristics of
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investors (overconfidence, better than average, disposition and gambling).
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Overconfidence can lead investors to trade financial instruments in which they are not
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accurately familiar with. Overconfident investors have been associated with excessive
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risk taking (Dorn and Huberman 2005; Nosic and Weber 2010), and this means that
they are more prone to take on risk for which there is no apparent reward. Also,
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overconfident investors tend to think they are above average regarding their
investment skills (Taylor and Brown 1988) and consequently may invest more in
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Table 1: The Participation Decision (Probit Model)
[1] [2] [3]
Male 0.256 *** 0.089 ** 0.083 *
8.80 2.12 1.95
Age -0.013 *** -0.020 *** -0.020 ***
-3.05 -4.34 -4.35
Age squared 0.0000 0.0001 *** 0.0001 ***
1.18 2.80 2.76
Married -0.008 0.071 * 0.072 **
-0.29 1.93 1.97
High education -0.125 ** -0.066 -0.078
T
-2.37 -1.09 -1.28
Intermediate educ. -0.105 *** -0.074 ** -0.067 *
IP
-3.43 -2.04 -1.84
Highly skilled -0.112 *** -0.106 * -0.108 **
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-2.87 -1.93 -1.96
Skilled -0.344 *** -0.341 *** -0.345 ***
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-5.82 -5.12 -5.18
Low skill 0.044 -0.017 -0.029
1.09 -0.37 -0.61
Independent workers -0.043 -0.078 -0.099 *
Lisbon
-1.13
0.020 U-1.46
0.050
-1.79
0.032
N
0.83 1.41 0.87
Porto -0.006 0.094 0.085
A
-0.17 1.57 1.43
Overconfidence 0.109 ***
M
2.58
Better than average -0.049
-1.27
Disposition 0.528 *** 0.531 ***
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16.84 17.01
Gambling 0.084 * 0.077 *
1.75 1.64
Low return 0.050 0.095
PT
***
1.49 3.46
if the investor trades warrants in the period, and 0 otherwise. Among the independent variables, male is a gender variable (equal to 1 if
male, 0 otherwise), age is the age of the investor, married is marital status (equal to 1 if married, 0 otherwise), high education is 1 if a
technical or higher course was completed by the investor, intermediate educ is 1 if the investor has more than 4 but 12 or less years of
education, highly skilled is 1 if the investor has a highly skilled job, skilled is 1 if the investor has a skilled job, low skill is 1 if the investor has
a low skilled job, independent workers is 1 if the investor is a professional liberal, lisboa is 1 if the investor resides in Lisboa, porto is 1 if the
investor resides in Porto, overconfidence is 1 if the investor’s trading activity is in the top quartile of the distribution on investors’ trading
activity and the investor’s performance is in the bottom quartile of the distribution of investors’ stock returns, disposition is 1 if the investor
exhibits disposition effect, and low return is 1 if the investor’s return on stocks traded is in the lowest quartil of returns. Better than average
and gambling are binary variables, estimated using investor characteristics (gender, age, education, income). Huber-White standard errors.
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The disposition effect, defined as the tendency to sell winning stocks too early while
riding losing stocks too long, has also been considered to have an impact on the
behavior since investors behave differently when they are in the gain zone than when
they are in the loss zone. The disposition effect has been found in retail as well as in
professional investors, and it has been found in stock (Odean 1998b, Grinblatt and
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Keloharju 2001, Dhar and Zhu 2006, for example) and in mutual fund investors (Bailey
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et al. 2011). I consider that disposition-prone investors may also adjust their behavior
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as regards the investment in warrants, a complex financial instrument.12 Thus, if an
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investor exhibits disposition effect in his/her stock trading activity then this behavioral
bias may also have an impact on the decision to participate in the market for warrants.
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The DISPOSITION variable is the proxy I use; it is a binary variable, equal to one if
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the investor exhibits disposition behavior in the stock trading activity, and zero
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otherwise.
Similarly, recent research postulates that some investors view trading in the stock
ED
market as an opportunity to gamble. Barber et al. (2009), for example, document that,
the stock market turnover, and the authors conclude that part of the excessive trading
E
of individual investors is motivated by their gambling desire. It has also been argued
CC
that gambling may justify investors’ irrationality when they opt for derivative products.
In fact, retail investors may decide not to be informed about product complexity and
A
which provides a rationale for product overpricing (Bernard et al. 2009). Campbell
12
Ofir and Wiener (2016) conclude that structured retail products are designed to capture investor biased
behavior such as the disposition effect.
19
(2006), on the other hand, argues that either investors make random decisions or
product distributors are very successful in marketing and selling. Nicolaus (2010) finds
to account for the investors’ gambling desire is to consider that investors who do not
use any source of information at all (i.e., they are not informed about financial markets
and instruments) are gamblers and make random decisions. The GAMBLING variable
T
is the proxy used; it is a binary variable, equal to one if the investor does not use any
IP
source to get information about financial markets and instruments.
R
The hypothesis that the investor’s performance in the stock market influences
SC
the investment in warrants is also tested. Mendes (2012) argues that investors with
U
low success in the investment in stocks are more likely to invest in more leveraged
N
products (that is, warrants) in an attempt to recover losses suffered. Thus, a binary
A
variable is defined for the lower quartile of performance of equity investments.
M
available, and the methodology of Seru et al. (2010) (also used in Mendes 2012, and
ED
the 30-day unweighted average return of the stocks purchased by the investor.
PT
warrants, but the better than average effect does not have a significant impact. This is
A
consistent with Coval and Shumway (2005) findings on future traders. Overly wedded
13
Related to this literature, Merkle and Weber (2014) claim that expectations are relevant to explain changes in
the risky portfolio of individual investors. Nevertheless, I do not have information on investors’ expectations and
cannot include this into the analysis.
20
to prior beliefs, an overconfident investor may discount negative public information that
As regards the impact of disposition, its effect is quite strong and I conclude
that investors who exhibit disposition effect in their stock trading activity are more likely
to invest and trade in warrants. This result is in line with the findings of Ofir and Wiener
(2016); using an experiment, the authors find evidence of the prevalence of the
T
disposition effect on investors’ decision-making regarding structured retail products.
IP
Regarding the possibility that some individuals may participate in the stock (and
R
derivatives) market because of their risk-loving attitude, albeit not very strong from a
SC
statistical standpoint, the gambling attitude seems to lead more investors to participate
U
in the warrants market, and this is evidence of a behavioral bias in the market for this
N
complex financial instrument.
A
One should also notice the high statistical significance on the LOW RETURN
M
variable in the model with the better than average effect, and its lack of statistical
OVERCONFIDENCE variable. This could be the result of its correlation with the latter
variable.14 Nevertheless, one can conclude that there is evidence that investors with
PT
low success from the investment in stocks are more likely to invest in warrants. This
suggests that the investment in warrants (and similarly the investment in other
E
CC
derivative instruments) may be an attempt to compensate for the losses investors incur
14
The OVERCONFIDENCE variable combines lower returns with higher trading activity.
21
4. Trading activity
investor makes. Conditioned to this decision, in a second step the investor decides on
whether to trade more or to trade less. In Portugal, both the stock market and the
warrants market can be considered liquid markets. One may recall that warrants are
T
a financial instrument with a large success in Portugal, and investors traded warrants
IP
very actively (Mendes 2012). Thus, liquidity does not seem to be a clear distinguishing
R
factor of the stock and the warrant markets.
SC
In this section I study whether investors trade stocks differently than warrants. For
this purpose, the number of trades each investor makes in either stocks or warrants is
U
used. I am interested in the impact of behavioral biases on the trading activity of
N
individual investors in both types of financial instruments.
A
Thus, the model’s dependent variable is the number of trades in warrants (or
M
stocks) an investor makes during the sample period. This is a count model, in which
the independent variables are those from the previous section. I use a negative
ED
binomial count model, estimated by maximum likelihood. Results are in Table 2, and
PT
A quick look at the results reported in Table 2 (models [6] and [7]) allows one
E
characteristics and behavioral traits. In fact, education, occupation and age do not
have a linear impact on the number of trades: investors with an intermediate academic
A
degree trade more warrants, investors with highly qualified occupations have a trading
activity similar to that of inactive investors, and in both cases they trade more than
skilled, low skilled and independent workers. Also, investors living in Lisbon trade
22
warrants more often. Nevertheless, gender and marital status are not relevant to
overconfidence has a positive impact on trading, this variable being significant at the
10% level, but the better than average proxy is not. Therefore, there is slight evidence
that overconfident investors do trade more often. The disposition proxy is significant
T
(at the 5% level), as it is for the stock trading case (models [4] and [5]). Nevertheless,
IP
this coefficient is smaller in models [6] and [7], which means that the impact of the
R
disposition effect is lower when investors trade warrants than when they trade stocks.
SC
However, the most interesting finding is related to the sign of the gambling coefficient:
U
it is positive (negative) for the warrants (stocks) case, meaning that the gambling
N
motivated trading is more pronounced in the trading of these derivative instruments.
A
Moreover, the coefficient of the gambling variable is higher than the coefficients of the
M
other behavioral variables. This clearly distinguishes the warrant from the stock market
activity, meaning that the search for pleasure in trading increases warrant transactions
ED
but instead it decreases the stock trading activity. In other words, when investors are
driven for pleasure to trade in financial markets they tend to trade complex products
PT
more and to trade simpler and easier to understand financial instruments less.
existence of lower returns obtained in the investment in stocks, the number of trades
23
Table 2: Trading activity – Count model
Trades in Trades in Trades in Trades in
Stocks Stocks Warrants Warrants
[4] [5] [6] [7]
Male 0.351 *** 0.346 *** -0.101 -0.063
30.00 29.98 -0.63 -0.39
Age 0.027 *** 0.026 *** 0.143 *** 0.145 ***
14.27 14.00 7.67 7.75
Age squared -0.0002 *** -0.0002 *** -0.0015 *** -0.0014 ***
-11.35 -11.19 -7.86 -7.82
Married 0.022 ** 0.023 ** 0.072 0.023
T
2.07 2.15 0.53 0.17
High education -0.176 *** -0.181 *** -0.121 -0.040
IP
-8.64 -9.08 -0.52 -0.17
Intermediate educ. -0.134 *** -0.128 *** 0.255 ** 0.227 *
R
-10.22 -9.97 2.04 1.82
Highly skilled 0.025 * 0.030 * -0.182 -0.101
SC
1.65 1.95 -0.94 -0.53
Skilled -0.263 *** -0.258 *** -0.976 *** -0.910 ***
-12.50 -12.26 -3.97 -3.69
Low skill -0.110 *** -0.112 *** -0.787 *** -0.717 ***
Independent workers
-6.25
0.015
-6.45
0.001 U -4.71
-0.761 ***
-4.31
-0.592 ***
N
0.88 0.09 -3.88 -3.14
Lisbon 0.033 *** 0.013 0.324 ** 0.429 ***
A
2.70 1.19 2.34 3.39
Porto 0.082 *** 0.054 *** 0.109 0.140
M
24
Better than average and gambling are binary variables, estimated using investor characteristics (gender, age, education, income). Huber-
White standard errors.
T
R IP
SC
U
N
A
M
ED
E PT
CC
A
25
In what regards the stock market, models [4] and [5] allow one to conclude that
there are differences in the socio-demographic determinants of the stock and of the
warrants trading activity. Less educated, highly skilled men trade stocks more
frequently, and the effect of age is non-linear. Marital status does seem to play a role,
and as for the place of residence, investors from Lisbon and Porto seem to trade more
in stocks than other investors. This set of results differs from those reported by Abreu
T
and Mendes (2012). In fact, using a survey of the Portuguese population (not actual
IP
transactions data), Abreu and Mendes (2012) conclude that gender, education and
R
occupation were not distinctive factors of the trading activity of Portuguese investors.
SC
As for overconfidence and the better than average effect, both proxies are highly
U
significant and with a positive sign, meaning that overconfident investors trade stocks
N
more often and that those who feel they are better than average also trade stocks
A
more often. This result is in line with the findings of Odean (1998b), Barber and Odean
M
(2001), Glaser and Weber (2007), Deaves et al. (2009), and Graham et al. (2009),
among others.
ED
investors who have this behavioral bias is that they hold on too long to the stocks in
PT
the portfolio in down markets, and sell them too soon in up markets, thus not taking
full advantage of the existing opportunities in the market. The sample period includes
E
CC
two bull market sub-periods (1997/2000 and 2002/2006) and one bear market sub-
these investors not only because there is only one down sub-period but also because
the bull market sub-periods are lengthier than the bear sub-period.
Gambling and low returns lead to lower stock trading activity: the coefficients of both
variables are statistically significant and negative, meaning that gamblers trade stocks
26
less often and that lower returns on the investment in stocks also leads investors to
5. Trading frequency
The number of trades was the dependent variable in the previous section, but this
T
dependent variable does not account for the period of time in which the investor is
IP
active in the market. To control for the time span in which investors are active in the
R
market I now consider that the investors’ trading activity starts when the investor
SC
makes the first trade, and assume she is active all the way to the last day of the
sample. The objective is to look at the trading frequency computing the average
U
number of warrant trades per year, which is the new dependent variable (in logs). The
N
independent variables are all the same as in the previous section, and this new model
A
is estimated by OLS.
M
frequency of trading may have a different profile and motives to trade than investors
document if the number of trades in warrants per year responds differently to variations
Contrary to least squares regression where all of the inferences pertain only to the
CC
mean trading frequency, quantile regression techniques allow one to study the impact
of each covariate along the whole distribution and not just the mean, and thus the
A
27
Table 3 Trading frequency in warrants – Quantile regression
Quant. Quant. Quant. Quant. Quant.
OLS
10 25 50 75 90
[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
T
Age squared -0.0002 0.0003 *** 0.0003 * -0.0003 -0.0005 -0.0007
IP
-1.11 2.61 1.67 -0.94 -1.35 -1.52
R
0.75 -0.35 0.01 1.95 0.27 0.17
SC
High education 0.245 0.127 0.343 0.366 0.333 0.049
0.97 0.77 1.45 1.23 0.61 0.09
** ** *
ED
Disposition 0.533 *** 0.003 0.251 ** 0.893 *** 0.915 *** 0.386
3.70 0.04 2.20 5.17 3.19 1.35
* * ** ***
Gambling 0.305 0.279 0.549 0.687 0.283 0.035
28
1.65 1.73 2.29 2.75 0.87 0.10
This table reports the estimation results of the OLS and quantile regressions. The dependent variable is the log of the average number of
warrant trades per year the investor makes. Among the independent variables, male is a gender variable (equal to 1 if male, 0 otherwise),
T
age is the age of the investor, married is marital status (equal to 1 if married, 0 otherwise), high education is 1 if a technical or higher course
was completed by the investor, intermediate educ is 1 if the investor has more than 4 but 12 or less years of education, highly skilled is 1 if
IP
the investor has a highly skilled job, skilled is 1 if the investor has a skilled job, low skill is 1 if the investor has a low skilled job, independent
workers is 1 if the investor is a professional liberal, lisboa is 1 if the investor resides in Lisboa, porto is 1 if the investor resides in Porto,
overconfidence is 1 if the investor’s trading activity is in the top quartile of the distribution on investors’ trading activity and the investor’s
performance is in the bottom quartile of the distribution of investors’ stock returns, disposition is 1 if the investor exhibits disposition effect,
R
and low return is 1 if the investor’s return on stocks traded is in the lowest quartil of returns. Better than average and gambling are binary
variables, estimated using investor characteristics (gender, age, education, income). Huber-Sandwich standard errors.
SC
Results of the OLS estimation and of the quantile regression model are shown
U
N
in Table 3, where one can confirm the superiority of the quantile regression approach
for it allows the discrimination of investors.15 If one is left with the OLS estimates we
A
M
would be (wrongly) assigning all investors the same impact of the independent
variables, which is not the case. Additionally, the best estimation results (measured by
ED
the number of coefficients with statistical significance) are those for the quantiles 25
and 50 of the (log of) annual number of trades in warrants. Investors who trade
PT
warrants less frequently (quantile 10) as well as those who trade this derivative more
characteristics emerge. Among those with more intensive trading one cannot find any
quantile 90, not even at the 10% significance level. Another very interesting result is
that, for most of the statistically significant variables, their impact on the (log of) the
15
The results of the estimation of the models with the OVERCONFIDENCE variable are not presented in order to
save space, but they are essentially similar to the ones presented in this Table 3.
29
average number of trades in warrants increases with the average number of trades of
the investor.
coefficients of the disposition and the gambler variables increase with trading
frequency, which means that the impact of these behavioral biases is stronger for
T
investors who trade warrants more frequently. For the disposition coefficient, investors
IP
with the 75% higher average number of trades per year do have a highly significant
R
0.915 coefficient whilst those with the 25% lowest average number of trades exhibit a
SC
0.251 coefficient. Thus, up to a certain level of trading intensity, the impact of the
U
disposition and gambling biases increases with the intensity of trading.
N
A
6. Concluding remarks
M
warrants, and discusses the hypothesis that some behavioral biases do have an
investors in warrants are different from those of investors in stocks. Firstly, investors
men are more likely to invest in warrants. Secondly, investors’ behavioral biases are
investors exhibiting a gambling attitude are more likely to invest and trade in warrants.
30
Moreover, disposition-prone investors are more likely to trade warrants more
frequently.
the gambling motive increases warrant transactions but decreases the stock trading
activity among these investors. In other words, when investors are driven to trade in
financial markets for pleasure they tend to trade complex products more and to trade
T
simple and easier to understand financial instruments less.
IP
Finally, the quantile analyses show that the disposition and the gambler’s effect are
R
the more relevant to explain the frequency of trading the higher the intensity of trading,
SC
except for high trading frequency investors who seem to be heterogeneous and
U
without a clear cut social-demographic and behavioral profile.
N
A
M
ED
E PT
CC
A
31
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